Friday, October 10, 2014

1. We arrived around 10:15am. There were no bag checks or security lines. The students got together and the teachers doled out tickets. I got one that said "guide pass." We passed through the turnstiles and wenot our separate ways. That is, I followed the teachers and the students went every which way. Our instructions were simple: Be ready to go at 3:40pm. I marveled at the amount of freedom given to middle schoolers.

2. Lotte World is indoors and outdoors, and while it bills itself as an amusement park, it also has plenty in common with shopping malls. I was surprised to see cosmetics stores and chain coffee shops here and there.

3. I think my past trips to Six Flags Great America have spoiled me. That park had more than five roller coasters; coasters that were much bigger, taller, and longer than the coaster I rode at Lotte World. Not that the Lotte World coaster didn't have its thrills--it was just too short.

4. Lotte World has a Folk Museum inside and a pretty good restaurant sits next door to it. I joined the teachers for lunch at that restaurant and enjoyed the bossam (steamed pork) and bibimbap. Both dishes are excellent by themselves, but the combination of the two made it one of the best meals I've had here.

5. Students and young people everywhere. One coteacher explained that October's usually a time for school trips, which explained why the place was packed on an ordinary Wednesday.

6. The Folk Museum: I got tired of the noise and rush of events in the afternoon, so I went there and spent an hour enjoying the exhibits from Korea's past three kingdoms of Gogureo, Baekje, and Silla. I honestly hadn't expected much from a museum that was attached to an amusement park, but I was wrong. The museum's worth visiting for anyone interested in Korean history, especially in seeing scenes from its past monarchies or its many temples and palaces.

*Lotte World is located next to Jamsil station on Line 2 of Seoul's subway system. It is less than 20 minutes from the Dongseoul Bus Terminal.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

We're on our way to Lotte World amusement park this morning. I'm on the bus with the art teacher and the third grade middle schoolers. It's my first time going there. It'll be good to ride a rollercoaster again.

Also: Updates on the way about the first month in the new town, hiking, and attending the KOTESOL International Conference. They conference was quite good because I got to meet Scott Thornbury, the renowned teacher and author, after his plenary talk.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

[Note: This is not a new post. I originally wrote it in the spring of 2012. It probably got listed as a new post when I was rereading it and noticed a few typos. I fixed those types, clicked "update," and saw later that it became a "new" post.

As it happened, Jane transferred to another school when that semester ended. I never heard where she went. She'd be in the final year of high school now.]

One of the joys of teaching is that no one day's ever the same as the next. Monday's conference with a student sparked this post.

The military has a rule that says "Always obey your commanding officer." Teachers have a similar, yet unwritten rule that says "Always support your fellow teachers. Do not contradict them unless you absolutely have to." Teachers need to back up other teachers to establish consistency both within the school and within the classroom. To contradict or go against another teacher means that the student(s) can exploit a weakness and play teachers against one another. It invites power struggles. Power struggles are never good because all parties invariably lose face.

Being the foreign (Guest) teacher only amplifies this point because the language barrier and not knowing all ins and outs of school culture can lead to students playing the Guest teacher against the Korean teacher(s).

I thought of this rule when a student, Jane, came to my desk yesterday to ask about an exam question. It seems she thought the question had more than one possible answer. Right away, I knew I had to tread carefully because although I proofread the exam, I did not write it. I didn't know the answer to that particular question either because Ms. J the co-teacher had written the instructions in Korean and had said not to worry about it. I asked her to explain the question. She did. She asked about whether the expressions she used were right. In my mind, I knew they looked okay, but I also knew that the co-teacher had had a different answer in mind. To say I agreed with Jane would mean contradicting Ms. J'a answer.

After she finished talking, I said, "Okay, I understand, Jane, but I can't help you here."
She nodded and asked, "But, isn't this the right expression?"
"It may be. I don't know. I didn't write the exam. Ms. J did."
"Yes, but you're a teacher too, and I thought you could help..."

I thought she might say that because she didn't know the difference between my job and the Korean teacher's job. We're all English teachers to her, and while yes, we all do teach English, my status as an Guest English Teacher puts me on a different plane than the other Korean teachers. Guest English Teachers follow different procedures than Korean English teachers. For instance, I'm not officially obligated to write exams or record grades for my classes. It's possible, but I don't have to. This alone means that I have no say with other teachers' exams.

This would be hard to explain to her, but I told her, "Yes, Jane, but the rules for me are different. I cannot help you here. You'll have to talk to Ms. J."

I had no real sway in the matter. To do otherwise would be to put Ms. J in a bind because Jane could say, "Well, Ben said this, but you said that" and put her on the spot. She persisted anyway. She wasn't arguing to argue--quite the contrary, as a passionate learner*, she's dedicated to knowledge for its own sake and simply wanted further explanation. And I couldn't give that to her. Jane eventually said "Okay" and let it go. She thanked me for my time and walked out of the office.

Fellow teachers: back up your colleagues.

*Jane transferred to Gimhwa HS from a high school in Chuncheon recently. She's a teacher's student: she comes to class early, takes good notes, beams a smile everywhere she goes, and studies hard. Her English is nearly as good as the Korean English teachers themselves too. Her advanced abilities play into why she came to my office because students rarely ask me about anything in their regular English classes because they lack the English necessary to explain themselves. They go to their Korean teachers instead.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

For Kevin at The Other Things Matter, whose post “9 Tanka” inspired me to try using some poetry
in my 1st grade high school class a couple of weeks ago. His post was also where I learned
about Tanka.

Tanka is
short Japanese poetry. There’s likely a more technical explanation, but for our
purposes here, tanka means short
poems about everyday life. In his post, Kevin writes about a few poems he’d
used in classes over the years. He used them because they contained things
students could relate to, like loneliness, and they did it in a way that was
direct and easy to understand.

lIn
other words, I thought the students might appreciate being able to read and
understand a poem in a foreign language. I know how good it feels to understand
a bit of Korean and figured that the students would feel the same way.

lIt’s
about time and how people change. It might spark some thoughts about how people
change over time.

lIt’s
about being a girl—or doing the
girlish thing, which the students might enjoy discussing, so we can lead into
gender roles and ideas about being a boy or girl.

Kevin
had included some thought-provoking discussion questions that he used in his
classes. I used them as well:

What do you notice about the poem?

Have you ever pretended to like something?

Do
you think there is a way to act like a boy or a girl?

...to which I added:

What are girlish things? Boyish
things

Why does
the poem end with the word strawberry

Could you
change the poem to be about you?

We
spent more time thinking of differences and similarities between boys and girls
than we did writing, but we did end up with some detailed Venn diagrams in all
four classes. My coteacher also stepped in and translated the poem for every
class. This was good of her to do, since maybe not everyone understood exactly
what the poem was saying. I hadn’t accounted for translating the poem.

As
for the questions themselves, I listed them on the board and distributed copies
of them to small groups.

The
groups eagerly listed anything they could think of. After they had time to
discuss the questions amongst themselves, I called the class to order and made
a master graph on the board. I wrote everything down, from differences in
appearance (long vs. short hair) to attitude. The group and class review took
longer than I expected, so there was little time for writing. This wasn't a big
problem, for the list generated plenty of vocabulary and discussion amongst the
groups.

Something
else that came up: Few if any of the students said they’d pretended to like
anything in the past. They were surprised to hear that I've pretended to like
or dislike a few things. One of those things is in this attempt at rewriting
the above poem:

because I
thought

it was a cool
thing to do

I pretended

until age 26

to hate going to
bed early

The
students seemed to understand it. The bell rang right around this time in all
four classes. And all four classes did go well. We may not have gotten to do
the poetry recitals that I’d envisioned, but we got somewhere. Ideas came up.
Words were spoken. They got on the board. The big thing in my mind was the
students had read and understood a poem in English. They’d read and commented on
a piece of literature. I count that as a success.

Notes:

lFor
the rewritings, I made this model:

nbecause
I __________________

it
was a ____________________

I
pretended __________________

____________________________

to
__________________________

lAnd couple
of students did attempt to write
their version of the “because I thought” poem. One girl wrote this:

because
I thought

it was
a good sister thing to do

I
pretended until the movie Frozen
ended

to
love the prince

lThough
I did highlight the poem’s short lines and show that it’s one sentence that’s
divided into lines, I didn’t highlight the the
girlish thing part. The difference between a girlish thing and the
girlish thing amounts to something in general versus something important.
Maybe it doesn’t matter as much as I thought, for such a distinction might have
been too much for the students to bear at first.